anubite

Because someone who's interested in game design can't play bad, or at least, unsuccessful games? There's a point to playing a game like SWTOR; it's to understand why or why it doesn't work as a product and as a game. If you aren't willing to actually experience things you dislike, you probably cannot grow. Also, this is rather interesting http://dgaider.tumbl...ic-environments I don't know what to say. Gaider seems to be saying, "There are intelligent people criticizing my work out there, yet I refuse to believe BioWare needs to change to be successful." Making me scratch my head here. Oh and one last thing, I forgot to mention... this...? It kind of left me dumbfounded. How is this not unethical? http://n4g.com/news/...in-dragon-age-3 I heard it's a joke, but god, I hope it really is.

You can have a comedic game. There aren't enough funny games really. Portal and others demonstrate this can work. But what's important is setting up the narrative correctly. DA2's dialogue seems like a parody of itself at times, if DA3 can't take itself seriously in the context of the story, then it's doomed. If I'm laughing at the story, instead of with it, I'm not immersed. And if I'm not immersed, I'm not roleplaying. And if I'm not roleplaying, then the gameplay better be amazing. BioWare hasn't even had "passable" gameplay since BG. Jade Empire, Mass Effect, DA:O and others were all deeply flawed and I doubt they have the time or the energy or even the care at this point, to reinvent the wheel they've been using for a while. The mood and atmosphere of an RPG is paramount. VTMB is such a successful RPG not because its combat is very good, or because its level design is even that amazing (only maybe at most 50% of the game really lets you solve each issue without violence), but because it has a consistent mood and theme and it executes it perfectly until the very end. The details are all there. And there are moments where VTMB goes off the rails and even makes 4th wall jokes (one major one is when Nines saves you for the first time, and those vampires look at the screen and address you the audience), so it's not like having Inquisition around a monty python parody theme would be a bad idea for an RPG, the issue though, is setting that mood and setting that tone. If you have the energy to watch my ridiculously long video, I cover this. DA2 has barren soundscapes. VTMB's soundscapes are rich and lively. DA2 has soulless visuals. VTMB borrows its soul from gothic, grotesque and modern imagery. There's a reason why DA2 feels like you're playing a game in a dead void. It's because it completely lacks and sense of tone and whatever serious tone it does establish is killed by melodrama, inconsistent human behavior, hypersexuality, and quirky, awkward dialogue. There's nothing wrong with BioWare making a sandbox game, it's just, they have no experience with it. I mean I guess SWTOR is "sandboxy" but most of the areas after level 20 are barren wastelands and a lot of the design in that game, for as far as I got in it, was haphazard. I can't recall a single quest I did in SWTOR, but I imagine most people who've played WOW recall parts of Darrowshire, or other towns. Clearly, they didn't study WOW hard enough. EA is known for playing "follow the leader" - they aren't innovative (sans the Sims I guess), they follow "big safe things" and basically try to find "the formula" for success. Hint hint: There isn't one. This is why most people are adverse to BioWare copying CoD when making Mass Effect, and maybe Skyrim with Dragon Age. There's no harm in studying other games to learn how they work, but copying a game out-right so far, has shown little success. And seriously, even Skryim had multiple races. Even cat-people. Isn't that a sign BioWare, if a game like Skyrim is willing to have multiple races and a silent protagonist, that maybe, maybe you guys should re-evaluate your choices? Skyrim was so streamlined it was disgusting but they didn't streamline those features - do you understand why???

I don't know if BioWare has learned anything. I don't closely follow the forums, maybe they've posted something to suggest that they have, but because the dialogue wheel and voice-protag are confirmed for DA3, I highly doubt it. The Doctors are gone, EA has renamed all its other studios, and SWTOR is F2P. I would hope somebody over there has said, "We need to change how we've been doing things." But I don't know. Maybe they're convinced Dragon Age 3 will be "right this time"? I can't help but shake my head, because I feel that way sometimes too. Like, Lambda Calculus? I took it this semester and I was so sure the second test would come out "right this time" but man, hubris is pretty painful to get excised. I can't help but feel that somebody at BioWare who's in charge of things thinks they know how to get the Skyrim/Call of Duty audience, but I'm not convinced at all. TES is a long-running series. Call of Duty is a long-running series. The fans know what to expect and they know what will be delivered when they purchase that product. Instead of building up a fanbase, BioWare has been neglecting theirs. Or at least, it seems that way. Maybe they're actually doing a good job of communicating to everyone their intentions but I just keep seeing mixed messages. As a consumer, I have no idea what to expect from Dragon Age 3. I mean, I hope it's going to be an RPG remniscient of KOTOR1, BG1, BG2, or even Jade Empire at this point. Gosh, I'd settle for that at this point, it's not like RPGs are a dime a dozen anymore. I'll take the mediocrity that was DA:O - DA:O has a lot of good points about it, the least they could do is stick to making that sort of game. I think it's a really bad sign that I have no idea what to expect. What do you think the average, uninformed consumer is expecting from Dragon Age 3? Are they going to pay $60 USD after their experience with DA2? How are they going to invigorate people who haven't bought DA2 or DA:O to buy DA3? Is the tagline for the game going to be, "It's just like Skyrim!" Because I'm pretty sure that's not going to work. At the very least, I don't believe BioWare can deliver a TES-clone, not in the time frame they have at least, and if people do fall for such a tagline, they're going to be pretty angry when they don't get what they want, and the people who didn't like Skyrim (such as I), who don't buy DA3 as a result, are going to mean a lot of lost jobs for BioWare, most likely.

Critical hits come in few varieties. They're either completely worthless and "unfun" (you have a 1% chance to do 1.5x damage, inside a game where it takes at least 10 to 15 hits to kill a normal monster), and just become a way for you to scale your damage (if you get your crit % up to 25 or so, then you're basically doing a lot of work just to get your average damage up 12.5%. In some RPGs, rogues are based around having low base damage, but they crit a lot. It usually results in rogues sucking. Or, in some games, crits are ridiculous and "unfun". (you have a 1% chance to do 2x or more damage, inside a game where it takes less than 2 or 3 hits to kill a normal enemy), and just becomes a way for your character to one-shot things, and even in this instance, a critical hit can become stupid/worthless, because of "overkill", or wasted damage. So basically, the issue is balancing critical hits so A) they're fun B) they're impactful (a 1 to 5 percent chance of doing an "attack and a half" is stupid, in games where fights can be attrition- based) C) they aren't frustrating (it's stupid to hope for a critical hit, likewise, it's stupid to find yourself insta-gibbed when a monster gets a "lucky string" of heavy crits) The solution to me, at least, is obvious. Critical hits shouldn't necessarily do extra damage. I mean, that's the issue, right? If they do too much damage, they can trivialize the game. If they do too little damage, they're stupid. Critical hits should just differ from normal hits. They shouldn't do more damage, they should just be useful. They shouldn't be frustrating, you should be able to deal with critical hits as a player. Consider this mock system: Critical hits with edged weapons inflict bleed (damage over time) Critical hits with blunt weapons inflict stun Critical hits with piercing weapons inflict armor pierce (reduced armor debuff) Critical hits with ice damage inflict chill (slow) or freeze (stun) Critical hits with fire damage inflict burn/ignite (damage over time) Critical hits with lightning damage inflict stun Critical hits with nature/wind damage inflict slow poison or knockback or reduce armor Critical hits with holy/light spells inflict blind et cetera In the case of bleed/burn/slow poison - the "DoT" is based upon the damage done. If you did 10 physical damage with the critical hit, then a 10 physical damage bleed is applied to the target, and it lasts 5 seconds, let's say. So it's effectively 2x damage taken, but it's over a duration, you can react to duration-based damage much more easily. AND if your enemy gets a lucky string of crits, it just resets the bleed, it doesn't cause all this front-loaded damage to instagib your character. This seems fair. Likewise, you can't trivialize encounters by instagibbing monsters yourself. This is an even better system if we make it about strategy. If you know you're fighting bandits, you'll want your healer to have anti-bleed spells on hand, to remove bleed when it happens. If you're fighting a Lich, you'll know to have anti freeze/chill support spells. Perhaps critical-based debuffs can be removed by other means - if your party member gets frozen, you can thaw them out with a fire spell. If we let critical effects interact, then we have an even interesting strategical combo-system. Perhaps you cause massive burn damage when you critically hit a bleeding enemy? Perhaps lightning damage inflicts armor pierce instead of stunning, letting your mage set up an extra powerful bleed on the enemy for your backstabbing rogue? I also have another idea in mind. It's similar to Fallout. But without the messy vats. What if critical hits inflict injuries, instead of doing bonus damage? A critical hit rolls a number which determines where the hit was scored. Edged weapons inflict blind if they critically hit the eyes. Edged weapons reduce your attack speed if you get critically hit on the arm or hand you're attacking with. This makes critical-based character builds about utility, rather than damage, necessarily (though you could specialize in bleed damage, perhaps). Injuries require resting or a powerful healing spell to negate. Spells would work a little differently. Every spell in the game would have its own unique critical-based effects. Petrify crits? It makes that target petrified and have a vulnerability to shattering, which is instant death. If "raise dead" (necromancy) crits? You get a very strong undead minion, with boosted stats, or maybe the spell is free, and refreshes itself in your spellbook instantly? If we let such mechanics be about utility, and not straight up damage, then we can even implement systems which allow you to have critical hits on demand. Do you really need to inflict bleed on a particular boss? Drink a potion which guarantees critical hits for a few seconds? Or maybe a spell does it? Maybe each one of your party members can do a "furious attack" at a large cost of mana or stamina/energy, guaranteeing that it crits, but draining that party member? Do these ideas sound satisfying, fun, and impactful? Or is it best critical hits just do more damage, and we ask Obsidian find the right balance for it being impactful and fun.

As for critical hits, I don't necessarily think they need to do more damage to be useful. PE could simply have a system where critical hits with weapon-based attacks inflict bleed. Critical hits with spells have varying effects. Fire burns, ice freezes, lightning stuns, wind knocks back, earth reduces armor for a brief duration, et cetera - effects on a crit is probably easier to balance, more interesting, and just as satisfying, compared to just doing more damage. Specific spells can even have specific effects on a crit, like a "Petrify" spell, when it crits, turns the target to stone and makes them extremely vulnerable to shattering.

In a vacuum I think this overall a bad mechanic but it could turn out to be fine for PE. It seems to me that RNG is the problem. And we can't get rid of RNG, not for a game like PE. I've always liked the "luck" stat, though most RPGs don't make use of it. Having luck normalize your rolls and bias RNG sounds like a fun mechanic to me. And although people do complain about RNG and "misses" or "lucky crits" - what most players fail to realize, is that without them, NOT getting them wouldn't be as fun (or possible, rather). Isn't it fun to barely, luckily survive an encounter thanks to a miss or a crit? Maybe this is less of the case, when you're dodging things all the time, but I'm wary Sawyer is making this change seemingly on the idea of players whining about it. Players will always whine about certain aspects of a game, but sometimes they don't understand the consequences of changing that aspect of the game.

That's so nice of you Volourn-kun. You know, I mentioned you in my video?

Yes. Yes I did. It was cathartic. There's a reason why I will not be talking about it ever again.

So I finally finished my video. I don't think it turned out to be that good. But it touches on all the things I wanted to touch on. If you can stand even a minute of it, great. If you can't, do skip to exactly 53 minutes in, I think I made a slightly-amusing analysis to a plot point in DA2. I admit it's way too long to ask most of you to watch it, and in an ideal world, this thing would be 1/5th the size, but I'm simply out of steam at this point. I don't ever want to talk about DA2 ever again lol

Do check out the video they just posted on the kickstarter. Their spriter is ****ing amazing. God, I can't wait to play this ****. I hope we can generate $6k in 3 hours, but I don't know, that's looking mighty unlikely at this point!

I think that if 20 "steam clones" pop up, there'll be 20 other "no DRM" services that equally pop up, to service people like 'us'. I mean, I think Gabe would do away with Steam's DRM all together if a serious competitor showed up that didn't have DRM. GOG just isn't a strong enough player to force Steam's hand just yet.

God. Don't give them ideas.

Things can be more than the sum of their parts, though I do agree with your fears to a certain extent. I don't think it's impossible to make the mechanics you listed work. But, I think they would be better off reconsidering some of these systems and trying some more traditional base systems, with some more creative in-house details to such systems (perhaps multiple classes can perform the role of a healer, not simply a priest/spellcaster), or what-not. The one thing I have to say in regards to Sawyer's video is that... when designing a game, one should strive to make all options potentially valid, but you don't want perfect balance. You want there to be a "good" and a "bad" choice in any given situation. If every choice is "equally valid" then there is scarcely a game to be had, because any choice you make wins the game equally.

Given the splash art, it looks like a Cullen fangirl's page. Alan can you please kill him in the next game? I'll buy it I swear if you do it.

Mechanics that lessen the impact of death I dislike. GW2 and Borderlands 2 are built around this 'second wind' mechanic. It might be okay for a very powerful special ability, but I'd rather see Obsidian implement abilities we need to use actively in combat, not passively rely on what amounts to a free resurrection.

How should guns be handled in this game? Will their rate of fire be less "realistic" (much faster than once a minute)? Or could we consider giving them bayonets with an alternative attacking mode while in close range? Could they be considered a "side arm" as in, you use a rifle of some sort, but resort to using a melee weapon after firing it a finite number of times in combat (because its reload speed is fairly long?).

Isn't that just a secret? Those usually are just a clue that says there's some obscure wall you can open by right clicking it. And then you do it and you get some crappy generic random loot chest reward (DA:O and Skyrim I'm looking at you.) I mean something akin to an actual secret. There are four items you find that appear to serve no purpose. Their symbolism is explained somewhere in the context of a level. There are four pedestals hidden in a room that apparently serve no purpose. The puzzle is to put these pieces together, put each item in a specific order on each pedastal, to open a hidden room. The less obvious this seems, the better. Though it shouldn't feel 'cheap' or 'random'. Most of DA/Skyrim's 'puzzles' are just barriers everyone is expected to solve and are relatively obvious by design.

Mass Effect 4: Gilligan's Planet I hope!

I agree buff effects shouldn't be shimmery bubbles of sparkling, but I can concede it's hard designing buff particle effects. But probably, buffs should be designed such that: -Long cooldown -Short effect -Important, time-based effect I think buffs should be more of a "use this under X circumstance" thing instead of a passive buff parade thing. Gameplay is more tactical when buffs are powerful but short lasting - a strong but very finite resource.

Every time I saw a dream sequence in ME3 it made me think back to BG/BG2. Sure, those dream sequences weren't that great either... but at least you could interact in the dream on a more concrete level. Things would talk to you - and then you could talk back. In ME3, you're running around in awkward slow mo chasing a kid and it feels flat. Like, I'm not feeling anything but the contrived notion that I should be feeling disoriented. At least in BG/BG2, the dreams seemed to serve a fuller purpose instead of being intentionally vague. Or at least, I'd probably give anything to tell that kid to take a hike. I don't want to chase his sorry ass and I want nothing to do with the 'conduit' or any of that nonsense.

The appeal of a themepark MMO is the social aspect. The community. Guilds and friends. Doing silly stuff with faction warfare. When I played WOW, I would often infiltarte Ironforge as a member of the Horde and hide somewhere, taunting alliance to come after me. BUT, one of the mechanics that keeps people glued isthe "progression" the concept of becoming more powerful, which is turned a psychological treadmill and reinforced by social stimuli. The appeal of a 'true' MMO (EVE or Ultima in my eyes are 'true' mmos) IS the social aspects and progression, but on a different level. In EVE, the game is controlling territory. This game comes to simulate real life to some extent - in EVE, there are plenty of stories of backstabbing and betrayal, infiltration and spying. Sabotage everywhere. People join corporations, get high up in the organization, then let hell break loose, gaining massive progression by causing mayhem. In a themepark MMO, the game is about the scripted boss encounter, in a sandbox MMO, the game is about the interaction of the virtual society upon player-controlled and hoarded resources. When I played EVE for a little while, I had a strong motivation to always attend fleet ops, even if in the end, they turned out boring or just about patrolling/keeping guard of a particular sector of our territory, it was because I was doing something as a team, following orders and coordinating actions with serious weight behind them, that made the game fun. I suppose some of that also carries into a themepark MMO, but to a more 'friendly' degree, I guess? Why people play MMOs is pretty arcane. I don't think anyone can explain it too well yet, actually.

Actually, recent research suggests Dinosaurs were warm-blooded. I don't know if that makes them reptiles anymore? Not sure.

1. Unstated puzzles. That is to say, "secrets". You notice something suspicious on a wall, maybe a clue that tells you, "Hey, maybe there's something I can do here?" 2. Word/math puzzles. Of course, some of the more obscure math puzzles suck but it's still fun being presented with them. 3. Puzzles with varying outcomes. Perhaps some puzzles have multiple answers, the reward you get for a certain answer varies.

I played SWTOR to about level 15. It's the first "themepark mmo" I've played since WOW, which I stopped playing around '06. It was interesting to play, because I couldn't really put my finger on why people didn't like it. I did read reviews that the first 20 levels are very polished (and I noticed this is definitely true), while the latter 30 levels are not. Would you guys pin that on the reason why SWTOR failed to hold onto players? The game felt very much like WOW, so I can't understand why people who like WOW wouldn't feel at home. Was it the lack of content maybe for the end game? About the only complaint I really have for the game, beside it being a themepark MMO (I don't care for that anymore myself), is that the passive skill tree - at least for the Sith Sniper Agent, was terrible. There was like, nothing I wanted. And any passives I did want, were like +3% damage with at most, two or three points available to invest in. Totally lackluster and boring. I recall WOW having pretty diverse skill trees, so even though they didn't exactly offer huge increases either, I remember it feeling like I was making a big choice by specializing. But that didn't appear to be the case for SWTOR.

Is this still going to happen? This sounds like a really interesting project to undertake, though it also sounds rather daunting. How much experience do you have with this sort of thing? Where can I read about how such a process like this might work?